The world is burning. But at least we have this.
Quick bit of context, I suppose. The Mask is a 1994 ‘fantasy crime’ comedy film starring Jim Carrey. Carrey plays Stanley Ipkis, a down-on-his-luck bank worker, whose life is turned around when he discovers a mask. When wearing said mask, Ipkis is possessed by the Norse god of mischief, Loki, and hilarity ensues.
The Mask occupies a weird bit of cultural headspace for me, being at the centre of a complex Venn diagram. It’s a 90s Jim Carrey vehicle like Ace Ventura or Dumb & Dumber (both ’94) – but it’s not that funny. It’s actually kinda dark and violent. So it also kinda feels like a superhero movie in the style of its contemporary Tim Burton Batman movies (Returns was 92). But it’s less grounded because of the magical elements. So it’s also kinda a fantasy/sci-fi movie, like a Men in Black.
I guess a good comparison is with the original Ghostbusters movie. That’s a comedy, sure. It has funny actors, funny lines, and jokes. But it’s also dark, scary and follows a pretty coherent plot. You could take out the jokes and it would still work.
The same could be said of the original graphic novels of The Mask. I haven’t read these, but from what I can gather they weren’t really comedic, and had more of a ‘dark horror’ feel.
You can sort of that sense in the film too, with most of the movie taking place at night and a whole bunch of ‘adult’ jokes. But then there’s a big stupid Cuban dance number and The Mask swallows a bomb that makes his stomach all big so lol it’s a comedy now.
Anyway, given that the film is about a character who wears a mask, it should be very very easy to dress up as him – right?! Wrong.
Let’s get started.
What an incredibly strong start. I don’t know whether it’s meant to look like The Mask’s face is melting off here, but I really hope it is. There’s no light behind those eyes.
This one isn’t so bad, and the hammer is a nice touch. I imagine carrying that thing around a convention centre would have got tiresome after about two minutes though. And at least’s he’s smiling. Kinda.
WELL I MAY NOT BE A FANCY BIG-SHOT CITY MASK. BUT I PUT IT TO THIS HERE JURY THAT MY CLIENT IS INNO-CENT OF ALL THE CHARGES LAID HERE TODAY.
US CITY MASK FOLK ARE SIMPLE PEOPLE WITH SIMPLE LIVES. WE LIKE TO APPRECIATE THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE. CORN WAFFLES AND SWEET APPLE CIDER. YESSIR.
My headcanon for this one is that he’s about to board an international flight but misplaced his luggage, so the only thing he has to travel in is his mask costume. I know that’s not what’s happening here, but IMAGINE IF IT WAS.
Imagine, you’re settling down in your plane seat, ready for the long trans-Atlantic flight to NYC. You’ve got a late Friday flight because you want the weekend to rest up before your meeting on Monday. You look around: no babies. Good. You flick through the in-flight entertainment system: huh, they’ve got Uncut Gems on there – already? That’s quick! The seat next to you is still empty. Maybe you’ll have the whole row to yourself! Maybe you can stretch out and get a nap. You don’t usually sleep on planes but perhaps if-
Oh no. Oh god no. There’s a figure standing over the seat. He checks his boarding pass, he looks up at the row numbers, he looks down at you. Through the black silicon eye sockets you get a glimpse of the pupils beyond. An eternity of time passes in an instant as your retinas perfectly eclipse one another.
He tries to place his oversized novelty hammer in the overhead locker. But it won’t fit. He sits down in the seat next to you. Why won’t he take off the yellow tuxedo? You haven’t said a word to each other.
The passenger safety notice rings through the cabin. “Please keep your seatbelts fastened until the seatbelt sign has been turned off. And passengers are reminded that this is a non-smoking flight”.
The figure looks up. He turns to you. Deep sorrow pours out of him. “s-s-s-smoking!” he whispers.
Yeah, imagine if THAT happened!
This one looks exactly like Donald Trump. I know you agree with me, but I can’t tell you why it is. The mouth, maybe? The tiny hands?
If you told me this was ‘hide the pain Harold’ (the stock photography meme man we all know and love), I would 100% believe you.
This is actually a very good Mask cosplay though. It’s beyond movie-quality, because they’ve added extra detail. “I want to cosplay as The Mask, but specifically as an older, more shrivelled-up version for some reason. Just wrinkles everywhere.”
This is, in fact, NOT cosplay of a Christmas version of The Mask – as I believed from briefly glancing at the Google Images thumbnail. It is in fact, cosplay of The Grinch, which is a whole other blog post in itself. HOWEVER, if we define our category as “people dressed up as a green character portrayed by Jim Carrey between the years 1994 and 2000” then it absolutely fits.
An extremely liberal reading of this would also allow you to sneak in cosplay of Jim Carrey as The Riddler in Batman Forever. Dude just loved dressing up in green in the 90s.
I like it when people go the effort of actually painting their faces instead of wearing a mask. I’m also getting lederhosen vibes from this, which is an interesting take.
Two Carreys for the price of one! And the timestamp claims this was taken in 2006 lol. It’s a half-decent Ventura. Only God can judge The Mask here.
This one still counts! It’s a rare pic of Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz with their stunt doubles from the movie! (What, you thought Jim Carrey swallowed that bomb HIMSELF?). I think stunt doubling is a kind of cosplay right, and I really really like the double’s costume.
And I love that he’s the only one not showing any signs of remotely enjoying himself. He should be having the time of his life, but no – the man is a professional and takes his work seriously. This is just another gig for this seasoned vet. And when the workday is done, it’s back home to his family. What a trooper.
I really like these candid ‘out and about’ shots. The vibes I’m getting for this one are “The Mask coming out of the County Magistrate’s Court after an unsuccessful appeal against a £50 speeding fine. The judge also ordered to the defendant to perform 30 hours of community service work, with the condition that he keep his Mask outfit on at all times as an additional form of humiliation”.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.